


Forever Young

by WomanofWonder



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Indian Wells 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-03-21
Packaged: 2019-11-26 20:11:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18185189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WomanofWonder/pseuds/WomanofWonder
Summary: Rafa has to withdraw from Indian Wells.  He goes to Roger's house to say goodbye.





	Forever Young

"It seems to me a crime that we should age"  
Elton John/Bernie Taupin

Rafa wasn’t sure why, after that morose press conference and a sad, quiet dinner with his team, he couldn’t bring himself to go home and pack for the trip back to Mallorca, but found himself instead standing outside the front door of Roger’s rented house. He raised his hand to knock and brought it back down again several times, finally shaking his head at his own hesitation and going through with rapping on the door. Mirka appeared after a few seconds and ushered him in with a hug. Rafa was grateful she didn’t start asking him a thousand questions about his knee or how he was feeling. She just went to grab a bottle of his favorite lemonade out of the refrigerator and handed it to him. As Rafa opened the bottle and took a sip, Roger emerged from a back room, closing the door behind him, carrying a German language copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. He put the book down and strode across the room to shake Rafa’s hand. “I was just reading the girls a bedtime story. Let’s go in the game room and chat. If the kids hear Uncle Rafa’s voice, they’ll never want to go to sleep.” Rafa grinned and followed Roger down a hallway to a room on the other side of the house from the sleeping areas. It had a ping pong table, shelves with stacks of board games and children’s books, and a small TV with a PlayStation set up in the corner with several large bean bag chairs in front of it.

Rafa walked over to the ping pong table and picked up one of the paddles and started bouncing a ping pong ball on it, needing something to do with his nervous energy. He turned the paddle from one side to the other with the ball in midair, wanting to make it more challenging for himself. Eventually, the ball got to moving too fast and it got away from him, bouncing across the table and onto the floor. He put the paddle back down on the table dejectedly. Roger didn’t say a word. Just stood next to Rafa and put a hand on his nearest shoulder. Rafa wanted to talk about having to withdraw from the match, but at the same time, he didn’t. Part of him wanted to scream and cry about his terrible luck and his stupid knee and how unbearable it was to be held back by his aging body, but he knew Roger already understood. They had been having this conversation for years now. It was nothing new. Rafa took another sip of his lemonade and sighed. Roger sensed Rafa’s tension and knew his friend well enough to realize that the last thing he needed to do right now was dwell on all the negative emotions. “Come sit over here with me and check out this new game the kids showed me this afternoon,” he said, steering Rafa towards the PlayStation and the bean bag chairs.  
Rafa cautiously sank into one of the bean bags, stretching out his legs in front of him. Roger handed him a controller, turned on the machine, and sat beside him. Rafa was surprised to see a tennis game pop up on the screen. Roger was starting to get excited, explaining that you could play a match with the real players and oddly, Rafa thought, insisting they should each play with each other’s character. Rafa knew enough to be suspicious of Roger’s motives, but he was so wrung out after the events of the day that he decided to go along with whatever this grand scheme might be. They started the game, choosing the US Open final, as that was the only one where they had never faced off against each other in real life. Rafa tried to concentrate, already feeling strange playing Roger’s character, but he kept missing his shots and sending the ball flying wildly off to one side or another. Roger won the first set with Rafa’s character. They clicked the controllers furiously without talking much, and eventually Rafa managed to get a handle on what he was doing, winning the second and third set as Roger. Roger came back and won the fourth with a stunning backhand down the line. By now, both of them were focused and determined to get the best of one another. The fifth set went to a tiebreaker. The tension built and when Roger won the final point after a 23-shot rally he was ecstatic. He whooped with joy and started using the controller to make Rafa’s character do a really wild and over the top victory dance. It was funny at first. Rafa was still wound up from the contest, but he cracked a smile. Unfortunately, Roger was one of those people who never knew when to stop.

Roger was in a silly mood and couldn’t help but continue making Rafa’s character do the ridiculous victory dance. He did it over and over and giggled to himself as Rafa got more and more irritated. Rafa couldn’t stand it. “STOP IT, ROGI! STOP MAKING ME DANCE AROUND LIKE AN IDIOT” he shouted, finally lunging towards Roger, trying to grab the controller out of his hand. Roger rolled sideways and flung his hand over his head in an attempt to hold the controller away from Rafa’s grasp, and in doing so, accidentally smacked his hand into the cardboard box sitting on the ping pong table, holding all the paddles and balls, flipping it over and sending the whole box clattering onto the tile floor in a colossal crash. They both froze, Rafa half on top of Roger, Roger with his arm stretched out over his head, still holding the controller. There were still a few ping pong balls bouncing around the room and then they heard the sound of someone running down the hall. The door popped open. Mirka burst in. “What in the world?!” she shout-whispered, taking in the sight of the two of them piled on top of one another on the floor, staring at her wide-eyed, looking like school boys caught playing a prank. “Uhhh,” Roger stammered, “the video game got a little intense. Everything is under control now.” Mirka burst out laughing. “Yes, I can see that,” she said. “I’m glad you’re having some fun, but you had better understand that if your antics wake up the children then you two are going to spend the rest of your evening reading them back to sleep!” Rafa found his voice, somewhat, and managed a sheepish “Sorry.” “I’m sorry, honey,” Roger said, “We’ll try to keep it down.” Mirka gave them both a good-natured eye roll and turned to leave, laughing to herself as she closed the door. As soon as she was gone, Rafa looked at Roger and gave him that raised eyebrow and that was all it took. Roger burst into a fit of giggling and Rafa couldn’t help but join him, just chuckling at first, but then dissolving into the deepest belly laugh he had had in a long time. They were still piled together on the floor, Rafa’s head on Roger’s stomach, both of them laughing and laughing until tears rolled down their faces. Every time one of them stopped for a few seconds they would look at each other again and the giggle fest started all over. Finally, clutching at his sides and wheezing, Rafa rolled away from Roger and managed to get his laughter under control. They laid on their respective bean bags and tried to catch their breath. “Roger, I gotta go back and pack up my stuff. We’re leaving for Mallorca in a couple hours,” Rafa finally managed to say. Roger sighed and said “Okay, if you must.” He staggered to his feet and stretched out both hands to help Rafa up from the floor. Rafa gratefully accepted the assistance and Roger carefully lifted him onto his feet and then pulled him into a hug. Rafa relaxed in his friend’s arms, aware that he was still breathing hard from all the laugher, feeling the tightness in his stomach muscles from having given in so completely to the fit of hysterics. He was glad he came here instead of going home to wallow in his misery. Eventually, they let go of each other, still smiling, and Roger guided him towards the front door.  
……………………………….  
Later that night, lying in bed, Roger grabbed his phone from the nightstand and started to scroll through Instagram. He stopped at a post by “Tennis TV” highlighting the handshakes and hugs at the net from his and Rafa’s first few matches back in 2004. “God,” he thought to himself, “were we really that young?” He looked at their baby faces and remembered, for a minute, what it was like to have his whole life and career still in front of him. He wondered, as he had said on court that afternoon, how many more matchups he and Rafa still had left to play. Would his back hold up for another year? Would Rafa’s knee? How would it feel to step out on the court with his great rival again, knowing that each time from now on could be the last time? Roger didn’t want to go down that road. Surely, they had at least a few more clashes left. He remembered their impromptu wrestling match that evening, the solid weight of his friend pinning him to the bean bag, trying to wrench the game controller from his hand. Roger smiled, hit the button on his Instagram page to share the video, and composed a caption.  
………………………………….  
Rafa woke up slowly as the morning light filtered through the airplane window. He looked at the screen in front of him and saw that they only had about two hours left on the long journey home. He stretched and felt those sore muscles in his abdomen, reminded again of laughing himself nearly to death on the floor at Roger’s house. He picked up his phone and clicked on Instagram. Roger’s post was the first thing he saw. Rafa sighed at their youth and long hair. He hoped with all his heart that Roger was right and they hadn’t yet faced off for the last time. Rafa clicked on the little heart, put his phone down, closed his eyes, and went back to sleep.


End file.
